Noah's Quilt - or What to do With our Favorite T-shirts

T-Shirts are funny things. They seem to multiply in our drawers. 

One day we open the top drawer and out pop thirty T's that just won't fit back in again. 

We wear them for all occasions -  we dress them up or we go casual, sometimes we even sleep in them. We love our T's. We collect them for all our activities including our sports, our social groups, our favorite bands, our school clubs. We have them from the time we are babies until we're senior citizens. There are t-shirts for just about every occasion, in every color and for every aspect of our lives. Some have such special meaning and fond memories for us that they are irreplaceable. They might be too small and have holes, but for very personal reasons, they aren't going in the trash!

So what do we do with all those T's you ask?  Come on now - you're talking to a quilter! You know, the people who never throw away even a 2" piece of scrap fabric!!  WE MAKE A QUILT!

Noah is my nephew, son of my SIL. He lives in another state, and sadly we don't get to spend much time with him or his family. So when it came time to make a high school graduation quilt for Noah, I was clueless as to his taste in color, pattern, fabrics, etc. And really, he's a guy, so even if we lived close and saw each other every day, I probably still wouldn't know what he preferred.

That's where my SIL came in. I asked if she thought he'd like a T-shirt quilt (or Memory Quilt as they're sometimes called). She brought me some T's to use. As difficult as it was to "borrow" t-shirts from his drawers and feign ignorance when he wondered where that particular shirt disappeared to, she managed to pull it off and brought a nice selection.

The T's are cut, framed, quilted and sewn together in blocks.

Hey, that's me! We were having "Show & Tell" at the quilt club I 

belong to and someone took my photo.

And this is Noah after opening his quilt. I think he likes it! 

Love you, Noah!!

Jake's Quilt

I had several roommates while in college. Living in a dorm and even in an apartment meant close quarters and really getting to know a person. A few of those roommates I've chosen to just forget, for various reasons.  I bonded with one in particular, who was fun and outgoing, everything I wasn't but hoped to be. Over the years we went our separate ways, and time took it's toll. We will get together occasionally  and it's just like time stood still. We can laugh and talk, complain and joke. 

She was and is, in many ways, the sister I never had.

She has a son who means the world to her. When he was about to graduate from high school she attempted to make a t-shirt quilt for him. Let's just say that she had collected about 5 times the normal number of shirts that would go into a t-shirt quilt, and had tried her best to cut the squares out to piece them together. 

I think she realized she was in a little over her head. It was at that point that we met for 

lunch and I offered to put it together for her. 

It was my first attempt at a t-shirt quilt. As I  looked through the shirt panels (there had to be at least 80), I was amazed at her dedication. She had saved items from his infancy through his high school years. There were all kinds of sports shirts, scouting shirts, photo shirts, family shirts and school shirts. 

Just about every aspect of his 18 years was captured in those shirt blocks.

This is Jake.

The quilt was finished in 2005.

There are at least 50 blocks in the quilt. It is HUGE! Because there were so many blocks, 

I didn't put sashing between them. Imagine how large it would have been if I had !?! 

There were so many extra blocks I made him a very large tote to pack the quilt in. 

I think it was used as a laundry bag when he went off to college. 

I'm so glad I was able to make this quilt for Jake. 

And even though I don't see his mom as much as I would like, I hope she thinks about me.  

I will always remember her and the wonderful adventures we had in college.

Too Many Bowls

 Many years ago, a very creative friend named Mary Ann, attended a quilt club meeting and demonstrated to the group how we could take ordinary cotton clothesline and transform it into beautiful and functional bowls.  She hauled in her sewing machine and explained that she would sit at her machine and wrap the little strips of scrap fabric around the clothes line when her TV shows were on, and then sew the clothesline together during the commercials.  I thought the concept was unique and looked like fun, but didn't jump into making them until several years later.  But once I jumped in, 

it was with both feet and after I finished that first bowl, I was hooked!

I have made several over the years, mostly to turn into gift baskets for Christmas or to donate to a Chinese Auction. I just tuck in a mug or 2, add a few coasters, hot chocolate, cookies, maybe coordinating napkins, and Viola! 

A hand crafted, made with love, one of a kind gift.

This was a Christmas raffle exchange a few years ago at the quilt club. Pam won this bowl. 

I took a bowl to Show & Tell at the quilt club, and the club ladies asked me to teach them. I got to turn a whole new group on to this contagious technique! 

 This is one of the largest bowls I've made. I just used scraps from my quilting scrap bag. (Quilters always have lots of scraps. We can't throw anything away!) You have to use strips that are about 1/2" wide and about 12" long.  But really, as long as you can wind it around the clothesline, it will work. A little dab of a glue stick on each end of the fabric to hold it down, and you can sit and wrap away a whole evening of your favorite TV shows. I guess I got carried away...

Bandit even wanted to help!

  In case you've never made one, after you wrap the clothesline, you coil it and sew it together with a zigzag stitch. In order to get the sides to go up, you hold the coil up against the machine and keep sewing around the coil. Eventually, you get sides.

My sewing room is crowded enough without adding bowls to the mix.

 After a while, the clothesline bowls started stacking up in my sewing room. I had to either stop making them, or come up with something to do with what I already had.

 

I put them on the table to take inventory.

What to do with all these bowls...  I decided to take them to a craft fair and see if I could sell them. It sounded like a good idea at the time, but it was an outdoor fair and you guessed it, it rained. 

Needless to say, I only sold one item, a little Mug Rug.

Some specifics on certain bowls:

Thanksgiving centerpiece maybe?

Mug Rugs, sets of 4 - the green & purple one sold at the fair.

2pc Bowl with lid

This one was made by wrapping the clothesline with white muslin and then dying 

the finished project. Not sure the technique is worthy of another attempt 

as it was supposed to be red, but the final product, with the beaded fringe attached, 

did turn out pretty.

Tote Bag

The tote bag was made without wrapping the clothesline. It's just dyed cotton clothesline shaped into a tote. See the difference in the colors? The tote and bowl were dyed in the same red bath, but they absorbed the color differently.

Bright and Cheery!

 This one was made using only one fabric, cut into strips. It was not my favorite pattern (or color) as yardage, but it turned out pretty nice as a bowl. Or what about using it to hold a plant? Violets maybe?

I decided that this red, white and blue one was just a little too "bright". I thought I could tea-dye it to tone it down. Maybe I didn't let it soak long enough. I really couldn't tell the difference in the before and after.

Kool-Aid bowls

I used cherry Kool-Aid to dye this batch of clothesline.  I wanted to try the crochet edging and you can't do that with fabric wrapped line. I'm afraid it would unravel without the stitching to hold it together.

So there you have it, I have a lot of clothesline bowls. I guess I'll have to make up some gift bowls for the holidays and surprise a few people.  If you get one, act surprised!

It would have been nice to sell them, but quilters already know that most of their items will be given away. That's just a fact, and the way we are. (And even though these aren't "quilted", the same stands true for bowls I guess. )

I personally would rather know that someone loved my bowl enough to put it out on their table or shelf, than know that I made money selling it.

Have fun BOWLING!

Molly's Quilt

 Molly is another of my nieces, who also happens to live far away (same country, different state). She is the daughter of hubby's sister. I don't get to see Molly much, but I enjoy the snippets I get on Facebook 

or the stories that I hear from her grandmother, who is here in PA. 

 Molly celebrated a very special occasion in October 2011, and this quilt was a 

gift to honor her as she had her Bat Mitzvah. 

 It is full of bright fun colors, and reminds me of Molly's bubbly personality. 

It's a "quilt as you go" quilt, so each individual block is pieced and quilted separately, 

then connected to the other squares with the strips between the blocks. 

It's one of my favorite ways to quilt. No wrestling a huge quilt under a small sewing machine.

 

 This is the back of the quilt.

 This was the label on the back of the quilt.

Baby Ivan's Quilt

This is baby Ivan. Isn't he adorable? 

His daddy and my son served together in the Army in Iraq and became good friends. 

Ivan is wrapped up in the quilt sent from me, here in PA, all the way to Texas, in 2012!

Ivan's quilt is another example of a strip quilt. 

I mentioned in another post that our quilt club had a 3" strip exchange of fun, juvenile prints.

   (If there were 20 people signed up to participate, you brought in 20 3" strips of fabric and you got back 20 assorted fabrics, all mixed up with what the other ladies brought in. A strip exchange is a lot of fun!! 

You never know what you're going to get, and you get an assortment that you 

would never be able to find or purchase on your own.)

I don't know how many strips I received all together in this particular exchange, 

but there were enough to put together three baby quilts, with a few solids and backing 

fabrics added from my stash.. Ivan's was the first one completed. 

And of course, I wasn't thinking "blog", so I didn't take any photos of the 

quilt's design or the piecing process, and had to ask Ivan's mommy to send me a photo. 

Thanks Ivan's Mommy!! 

Jenny's Quilt

 This is Jenny. She is one of my beautiful nieces, daughter of hubby's brother.
She received her quilt while here in PA for a family reunion weekend in 2012.
Coincidentally, she graduated from high school this past spring. 

My hope is that she takes it with her as she goes off to college,
letting it wrap her in the love with which it was made.

This is a strip quilt. It's made by sewing end to end, 40 2 1/2" strips of fabric 

until you have one long strip that's about 1,600" long! In quilters lingo, you can use a Jelly Roll 

(a roll of 40 2 1/2" width of fabric strips, usually put together using all the 

fabrics in a design block.) 

It's not a particularly difficult quilt to make, but it sure was fun to put together!

 We have "Show & Tell" at our quilt club meetings. I was showing the quilt to the ladies
and explaining how it was made. They loved the fun border print.

 And this is a shot of the back. You can see the beautiful quilting much better on this side.
This quilt was quilted by a friend of mine who has a long arm quilting machine.
I think she did a beautiful job!

Kristen's Quilt

Kristen is my oldest niece. She's my husband's brother's daughter.  When she was born, there were just three cousins - my two oldest sons, and her, all born within a few years of each other. Whenever we would visit Grammy's house, hubby's mom and my sweet MIL, the three of them would get a chance to play together. It was fun watching her grow up into the beautiful young woman she is today.

My goal was (and still is) to make quilts for all the cousins by the time they graduate from high school.  There are eight cousins on that side of the family (twelve if you count my four) and when it came time for Kristen to graduate, I wasn't as prepared as I should have been. I guess I procrastinated because only seeing her at her grandmother's and infrequently at that, I really didn't know what she liked. Was she a "pink and purple, ruffles and lace" kind of girl? No, I didn't think so. But I just wasn't sure what her tastes were. So around the Christmas holiday's in 2005, when she was visiting my home, I took her into my quilting room and started opening drawers and pulling out fabrics. We decided she liked BRIGHT fabrics! So that's what I went with.

 I finished her quilt in time for Christmas 2007. Late for graduation, yes. But I think she forgives me.

And of course, not realizing I would need a blog to keep track of the quilts I've made over the years, I didn't take any photos before I gave it to her. So she was kind enough to take these herself (or with a little help, I think!?!) and send them to me. Thanks, honey!!